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A move by sugar mills in Maharashtra, India’s biggest producer, to import at least1million tonnes (mt) of raw sugar to tide over domestic demand has sharplydivided the industry.India has sufficient stocks of sugar and does not need toimport the sweetener either in raw or white form this crop year, a leading bodysaid on Friday.

"There is more than sufficient availability of sugar, far beyond the domesticrequirement with sizeable carry forward stocks to the next year," Indian SugarMills Association president Ranjit Puri said in a statement.

Inflation came down to 8% this is 7-month low on the back of softening

food prices,strengthening the case for further interest rate cuts to shoreup the slowing economy. The wholesale price index (WPI) for the weekended November 29 dropped to 8% from 8.4% in the previous week.Prices of food related items came down during the week following a 1.9%fall in the prices of fruits and vegetables. The prices of fuel andmanufactured items remained unchanged over the week.

Economists expect inflation, which peaked at 12.91% in August, to fall ata faster pace following the recent cut in fuel prices and a 4% cut in exciseduty, so inflation may come down further it seems.

Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd(BHEL) would invest about Rs 10,000 crfor new ventures in the coming years.Managing director K Ravi Kumarsaid BHEL was expecting to expand its power generation capacity to15,000 MW from the present 10,000 MW before December 2009 and to2000 MW by December 2011.To achieve this target, its production unitsat Tiruchi, Bhopal,Haridwar, Jhansi and Hyderabad were in the processof modernisation and expansion, he said. He said that BHEL was in talkswith General Electronics for the manufacture of advanced gas turbine atBhopal with an outlay of Rs 1000 crore.

On constructing nuclear reactors with the guidance of Atomic EnergyCommission and Nuclear Power Corporation of India ltd, Ravi Kumarsaid talks were on with global majors in this sector. He said talks wereon with Alstom and Siemens for the manufacture of high speed electriclocomotives.

Market regulator Sebi will look at increasing the net-worth needed fora firm to operate as an asset management company.The heavyredemption pressure seen by the mutual fund industry during theOctober crisis has put the market regulator on guard. We have learnt that Sebi may go in for an upward revision in net-worth requirementfor asset management companies. Sources say the requirement maybe hiked to Rs 50 crore from Rs 10 crore.The Sebi MF Panel also wants money-market mutual fund schemes tobe valued realistically and wants the valuation based on the day's net-asset value (NAV) instead of the historical NAV.

The Sebi MF panel also discussed a few other issues like sectoral capsfor mutual funds — it has been noted that some MFs have invested asmuch as much as 74%–97% in the banking financial services industry .

They have discussed one more thing the issue of the mismatch betweenindicative yield and actual yield of fixed maturity plans (FMPs) was alsodiscussed. The panel also felt that there is a need for transparency in thetransaction of MFs. It feels the distribution commission which is deductedfrom total investments from MFs should be taken as a separate cheque fromthe investors.